NAPLES, Fla. — In what he
hopes will be a “game-changer in terms of the Cooperative Program and our whole
relationship with missions,” Hayes Wicker has led First Baptist Church in
Naples, Fla., to launch the “Great Commission Connection.”
The initiative aims to
personalize missions by linking church members with missionaries and others who
serve the denomination while also boosting support for Southern Baptists’
cooperative missions funding channel.
The project already has
resulted in connecting 507 families in the Naples’ congregation with about
1,500 Southern Baptist missionaries, the Florida Baptist Convention and faculty
members of Southern Baptist seminaries. In the coming weeks, especially as
seasonal members return to Naples, the church anticipates additional families
signing up as well.
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The Great Commission
Connection concept asks church families to adopt a “missionary package” that
includes one International Mission Baord missionary, a North American Mission
Board missionary or combat chaplain and either a Florida Baptist Convention
missionary or seminary faculty family. Congregants agree to establish contact
with the three to ask about their prayer needs and be an encouragement to their
ministries.
Church members also commit
to giving at least an additional $300 per year over their tithe, with some of
them using a “Change the World” piggy bank to collect loose change throughout
the year. The additional funds will complement the church’s budgeted allocation
to the Cooperative Program in hopes it will generate an extra 2 percent giving
from the church through the Cooperative Program.
“In no way is this a
substitute, but is a supplement for Cooperative Program giving,” said Wicker,
pastor of the church since 1992. “And the exciting thing about this is it opens
the doors for us to talk about how to pray for missionaries, how others are
involved in missions that they don’t normally think about — like seminary
professors, Baptist missionaries in our state and others.
“I believe we have the
greatest missions program in history. Our people need to know how wonderful it
is,” Wicker added, noting the strength of the Cooperative Program (CP) is that
it frees missionaries from the need to raise their own support. He said the CP’s
weakness is “facelessness” and “lack of personal contact.”
There is a need in the
congregation, he said, to make First Baptist members more aware of Southern
Baptists’ missionary efforts because many members come from a non-evangelical
background in which they did not learn about the missions mandate, or they come
from independent churches that support missionaries who raise their own
support.
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Smith
is executive editor of the Florida Baptist Witness.)